SapperSix

Yes, rivet counting......just a year ago I used to build a model and be happy with my techniques. Then I got a little time one day and decided to log on to a modeling site as I had not engaged before. And I have been running ever since. It seems to be getting worse for sure....I might need an intervention. Having said that I am soooo much happier with the techniques I have learned and the detail of my models. The pocket book is a bit flat though.... Thank you for the kind words. Given your builds I have much more to learn. I have been looking at the cockpit and want to do it all over again, even though it set a personal bench mark. I have not a single ZM in my stash. Christmas for sure! Once you start your build you can bet I will be watching as I have another Phantom in waiting. See you at the workbench!!

Harv, you are spot on. The Revell even has the wrong rivets in the wrong place. Depending on time today I will get a picture up of all the changes, tail and rivet wise, for any modelers that might want to bring the pain upon themselves...If I had a punch set I would have zoomed through this instead of buggering through it. Such is experience. However, I learned things for other models. Never a bad build in my mind.....Nice upgrade to the Tamiya. You have created what I am going for.

Gaz as always you are very helpful. Much appreciated. Looks like I am in the market. This model has doubled the amount of tools that I have used in the past. I think maybe I have become...A RIVET COUNTER!!(Que scary music). But man is this fun. And I really want to achieve the many things I see happening in other builds. And so I go, further down the rat hole.

I was getting ready to put some primer on the NMF tail of the Phantom. That's when I noticed that the rivets are all wrong, far too small. The reference picture verses what Revell did.......big difference. What to do? So looked at some other builds. The examples I found were few. Enlarging the rivets in the tail section would be a multi part process. I did choose to use the diameter of 2MM for the new rivets, not to scale, but I already had the 2MM drill and some wire or plastic round tube at the same diameter. I wasn't willing to place another order for a punch or more stuff. So I will have get rid of the small Revell rivets and replace with a large diameter washer and rivet. I am using the 2mm hand drill to get a MM deep or so. Then cutting some lead wire, putting it in the hole to be lightly sanded later to replicate the washer. I cant decide how I am going to recreate the actual rivet (If thats what it is). Making the new holes, and looking as to how I am going to plug the old small ones. All the rows of larger rivets are now drilled. Two of them with the first lead large rivet attempts. If someone else has any ideas on this I am open to learning.....

AARRMMYY Training!!!

Give it a go. For me enamels just took more work to expose the chipping layer. I have never used enamels to perform double layered chipping and acrylics seem to come off a little easier. But again, density of coat seems to make a big difference. You are welcome, anytime.

I have received the decals and spark plugs I ordered in a very timely manner. I am going to use the decals on my RF-4C build. I am very excited. They look fantastic. The spark plugs are amazing and will be used at a later time. Thank you... P.S. Still married for the time being....LOL

Oh that was pure genius Gaz.......I am off to get the whiskey. Too funny!!

I am amazed how deep the hole can be when one is tracking down information when striving for a painfully accurate build. I have began to understand the pain of those we call bolt counters. The below work took a good bit longer than I had expected. Just to put a few placards on I kept finding different or incomplete information. The main wheel well cover had a multitude of varying examples. By the time I said "Screw it, get it done!" about 4 hours had passed as I tracked various references and online sources. The Eduard placards had incorrect colors for the afore mentioned placard for the RF-4C. Which led to a little looking around. The speed breaks are very much straight forward. The ALQ-71 has completely false numbers and decals on it. I couldn't find many period examples. I was going to have to make some decals but instead opted to us some remainders to achieve an effect. Now I feel like I have cheated on a test....I will probably have to go back and make actual decals to assuage my mind. Still I have learned so very much. Having said that, my next build will probably OOB.

Gaz, It has been a real pleasure to focus, completely, on modeling. Its a rare thing in my life, but I predict more bench time in the coming months. Google is far more knowledgeable than I. However, below is how I did it, your experience or technique will vary... 1.) Good base primer (Dry overnight) 2.) Cover primer with coat of paint to be the exposed through the chipping process. I used MM Steel, and Chrome Silver. (Dry overnight) 3.) Put a nice coat of hair spray down. I used Aussie hair spray, decanted, as that is what I was able to steal from the wife and daughter. Then mixed with a little bit of Tamiya X-20 Thinner. About 50/50 mix, although your spraying technique may require something different. Thickness of this coat seems to affect the type and depth of chipping. I am still getting familiar with this technique. (Dry overnight) (You can put down multiple coats of hair spray and chipping paint layer to create two or more layers of chipped paint) 4.) Put main camo coat down. (Dry overnight) 5.) I used a wet Q-Tip to rub on the paint until chipping began. This length of time and amount of pressure that is to be applied depends on the paint and thickness of coats. I also used a toothpick that had the sharp end dulled a little to make deeper more obvious chipping. 6.) And then I augmented using the fine paintbrush chipping method to replicate fine chipping. I have seen people say you can only do this with a acrylics or maybe enamels. I have used a mix of both and while there at are differences it always has seemed to work. I am sure there is someone that is expert on this that might expand on this. Thank you for the kind words. More detailing to come on those tanks...

I had no idea.....most informative.

Lots of ground covered over the last couple days. I have found myself with a bit more free time than usual and have spent some of it on the work bench. Lots of paint shading and detail on the fuselage. Many hues of of the camouflage were experimented with. In the end I am very happy and eager to see the final harmony of it all. In some areas I did get a little loose with maintenance wear and tear. More on that later. I spent some time looking at the flare dispensers for fit and finish. I noticed that after all the re scribing and riveting alterations and modifications I made on the plane, I failed to make the changes in this area. I dont think I am going to re do the work. I will at least sleep on it. I turned the paint being taken off from the tape in to chipping. And did some real chipping. . The center line tank and some experimentation. More to follow. For the tires I had to make custom masks from Parafilm. The center of the main landing gear is actually painted in the old testors rubber color and not flat black. Its going to end up with a much more rusted look and the testors rubber paint already leans that direction. A little chipping was also applied. Dry brushing and pastels to come. I will come back tomorrow and give more detail. Time for bed after a good day on the bench. Thanks for looking and all the fine advice.

Peter!!!! Do your stuff man. I need to learn from you. I am glad you are back!!!

If you haven't tried it out you will wonder why. Very malleable, holds its position as good as tape without being as sticky. Shaping over odd parts to protect from spray paint or marking borders is a breeze. Masking seems to work much better in many ways, one can see the target through the clear parafilm. I just got two rolls off Amazon and will probably get more because its just too useful. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parafilm

Gaz, I am fanatical about hockey, whiskey and..............and..............I will have to get back to you. A dusting of grey combined with the black wash you speak of are the likely approach. I want to be very careful to not overload the pallet....Thank you for your input.

The testing never ends.....

As always Harv with the solid information. I will give it a try next time now that I am probably going to prime all my models. Thank you! I have much to learn. I tried to adapt it to a more realistic, less patterned, shade. I really have gone to far for my forst attempt and probably should have learned more of the basics. Fairly happy with it so far, in some places I need practice. Thanks Gaz, I might have picked up the sand paper thing from one of your pots!?!? These days I have to check multiple times to make sure I have put my pants on ...Thank you for the kind words. Many subtleties with this scheme and base. I bit off much and am looking forward to really getting good at the idea. Thank you for the kind words.

Barry, Well hell, I was tracking grey over white for this plane and year...I forgot where I read that. Then I started looking at references and see that some are saying white. Now I am questioning the undercoat.... Thank you for pointing that out. -Frank

I have been doing a lot of studying on the Phantom as it was around 1970 when at Udorn Thailand. I found a great web site, Picciani Aircraft Photos, to look at the many faces of the Phantom at service. If you go to the website and look you will find Phantoms in many states of up keep. As an example, some Phantoms have two, even three types of tan or light green on them. You will also see varied colors, olive drab used in some cases and large areas that have been repaired using varied colors. Many are very weathered and many are looking as though they are pretty fresh. I have also looked at various other builds, sources and books. And what I found is the possibilities are many (Imagine that....). I dont know if certain paint schemes, such as how the wing fuel tanks were painted, were phased in over time or was it a free for all? The rabbit hole of how things came to be, when or why became very deep. So finding a path in the near term was to topographically scan the options and deciding on a plan of action. I also noticed the Phantom doesn't seem to lend itself to very defined panel lines. I dont know if this is an outcome of how its built, paint scheme, lighting and or photo effects. Testing my capability and learning new things have been very much the them of this model. For Christmas my wife bought me a new Iwata HP-CS. My my beloved Passache had seen many faithful years and I had ruined the fine needle ages ago and had to go to the medium tip. So the addition of the Iwata was a god send, and to be honest I was excited about the possibilities. The Iwata has not failed to please. What a great brush. So I began to learn about black basing. And of course tried a few versions on my trusty test plane, a P3 Orion. In the many possibilities theme....On the above mentioned web site there are many examples of both the "straight edge" paint job, "wavy" paint job and completely colored wing fuel tank for the phantom. Also examples of the pylon remaining white, partially white or painted the same color of the tank. I chose white pylon, straight edge tank based on what I had found on the 14th. I will likely go back and soften the edge by free handing it. I was disappointed to have the white paint come off in a few places even using Tamiya tape, this has never happened to me. The pylon will be properly covered during the repair of the tank. I also need to bring down the dark shades a bit. This begins my experimentation with varied types of and black basing in general. I am sure many are wondering if I have any sanity. My wife will tell you there is little and what remains is clustered by high priced whiskey, prolonged field operations and bouncing off the ground from high altitude during airborne operations. What you are seeing in this picture is the phantom that has been "black based" by spryaing paint through a Scotch Brite cleaning pad that has been cut along its horizontal axis and further thinned by using scissors to thin areas for better paint penetration (Yes I said penetration, you can stop laughing........Clunkmeister.) I learned this on another plane based web site from another modeler, and have been experimenting ever since. I have further this by using lighter and darker colors and integrating standard black basing techniques. Creating what I see as a truly random color adjustment, integrating what I can best determine to be true weathered effects. On the right intake you can see where I started to fill in some of the less busy places with standard black basing. I didn't want to go overkill on the panel lines as the phantom doesn't really lend it self to highly defined panel lines to the best I can determine. And I plan on doing a panel line pin wash with a undetermined color. You can see here where I started to apply a slightly modified dark tan (Testors MM Dark Tan with a little dark sand and minute flat black.) using the black basing technique and filled in as appropriate. Various shades of the above techniques with a lightened formula on the top parts (horizontal) of the fuselage to recreate sun bleaching. I was working on using very fine sand paper (1500 and greater) to work out additional fading or shean creation of weathered panels. Here along the in the transition between the dark and light green. I darkened up the light green with olive drab and a little flat black. I also began to ready the base layer for vertical weathering "stripes". The overall paint job was done free hand. While I started off horrible, I ended better than what I started. so I will have to go back and tighten up color boarders. I forgot to be very mindful of the direction of my spray gun as it relates to the target. I was quickly reminded when the green paint road the vortex of air in to the seam of the dark yellow. A general look at the uncorrected first pass and a long day.... The white under fuselage was also black based using the same method as above. I will be adding grease smears, panel lines and a million decals so my thinking was it was going to be very crowded. So in the end I smoothed it out more than I had originally intended. The landing gear wells were given a nice even coat of white as I will go back and give them special attention. Lots of learning and lots of experimentation. I often got tired during painting with all the new attention to detail and had to stop a few times to let my arm muscles relax and eyes re adjust. All in all a great time.Any input is greatly appreciated.

Gaz you are a model making machine! I very much like the overall scene. I can see the drama of the fight in your work.... But I hate to tell you panel one of the tank was built in the Ukraine in 1941 when they only used olive paint type 2.4 from Venezuela. Also the vents on the rear engine deck were made by a guy name Harold on a Tuesday after an argument with his dog. Because of this he used the inverse ration of wiring in its creation. Had your tank included any of these factors it would have been ok.....

WOW! Thanks Tom, My wife is going to divorce me as I spend too much money on all this cool stuff.

Is this some kind of Porn? Hard to tell these days....Plastic Porn?

Hell GAZ!! She is beautiful! I dig the NMF work and wow!!

She now has legs. The brass landing gear is absolutely fantastic. The hydraulic actuators for the main landing gear need a little work as to their attachment to the main wing. Now that I have proper reference books and new found confidence, I would like to rip out the landing gear bays and start over. The next model of choice will surely get the full treatment. Upon putting on a good even primer coat (Mr Surfacer 1200 diluted 50/50 with lacquer thinner) I realized that I had to pay more attention to some body work. I will spend the remainder of tonight touching her up. Its the first time I have ever used a primer for the whole of the airplane. I am hoping to make it easier for the white under fuselage coat to adhere using less paint. And to spot body work imperfections, so far on target for this one. The primer eased some of the sharp panels lines I had scribed prior. And made them look better than what I had originally produced. She will have the SEA camouflage scheme when done. I am thinking of black basing the tan and lighter green camouflage areas. And then use a wash to pull the panel lines out, ever so. What and how much weathering is being looked at in detail. I have some thinking to do on how this is going to happen.

Its a beginning and I have much to learn. Thank you kindly!!